


Over and Over

by torilokiderp



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 19:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4449695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torilokiderp/pseuds/torilokiderp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alistair remembers his Warden, recalls her memory when she is no longer at his side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Over and Over

**Author's Note:**

> A thing I wrote late at night, in a random burst of energy. Hope you enjoy! :)

Every morning, he would watch her sit in the shade of trees outside the camp. The sun would not yet have risen, but its light would touch the sky, a drop of color in water. A few of the others would still be sleeping, with Sten still vigilantly pacing the outskirts, and Barkspawn whining and kicking his legs as he dreamed. Before, he would have been amongst those who still slept, but the rustling of her thin covers began to wake him.   
With his cheek pressed against the head of his bedroll, he would peek out at her. In the shade, she protected herself against the harsh light of the sun when it rose, a light she was still growing accustomed to. Only in later months would she soak up the light or dip her toes into the streams or ponds they camped by.  
Sitting beneath the trees, she would bring a brush through her long hair, a color like night against the paleness of her skin—she was pale in those first months, before the sun kissed her cheeks and made her warmer. At first, he didn’t count, but merely followed each stroke through the strands until they flowed like silk. Later, he counted one hundred. She would explain that in the Circle, she would have enough free time in the mornings to prepare her hair in the slowest manner. He watched those delicate fingers part the entirety of her hair into two parts, tossing them over her shoulders. Her eyes always seemed blank, perhaps from weariness or from her focus. With a patience he never seemed to have, she would start on one side, parting the strands, and would begin to weave them together. Over and over with an experienced hand, not one hair straying from its place. At the end of one, she would pause and then raise her arm, bringing the long braid to the back of her head and twisting it tightly, and with a band, keep the bundle in place. She would do the same with the second collection at her other shoulder. The sun usually would have risen when she was done, and she would rise from her place with a stretch, life finally poured into her eyes.  
Every morning, he watched her with an interest that never wavered, and he could not truly explain it until those moments came where his breath would catch in his throat when she smiled. He counted one hundred brushstrokes and followed her fingers through a river of midnight, over and over. He believed it was a bit too strange when he imagined his own fingers threading through those locks, which seemed far softer than his own, even softer than the red petals he thumbed in silent moments.  
They camped in the snow of the Frostbacks, intent of sitting in the light of the moon after so many weeks in the dark. Sitting beside her, he pressed the stem into her palm, his thumb brushing over the delicate flesh of her wrist. Her presence was soft and warm and her touch was tender, and he feared his own rough flesh would scar her when his hips drove firmly against hers. When he nestled the petals into the river of her hair, it was the same: soft. His bedroll was warmer and her kisses woke him, his name faint upon her lips, Alistair. In the mornings, he rose with her, sat with her reclined between his legs, a giggle leaving her if he decided to nibble at the tip of her ear. Her routine memorized, she allowed him to run the brush as gently as he could through her hair, a hundred times, and her laughter would echo in his ears, her eyes brighter than they have ever been. Fumbling and focused, his calloused fingers would part her hair and weave it, over and over, bundling it at the back of her head. If it seemed messy at the beginning, she didn’t care; she would climb into his lap and place her lips at his temple, her small fingers pushing his hair into its usual fashion. They would sit well until all the others had woken, the smell of breakfast in the air.  
The mornings were no longer the same. He would wake to the absence of a breeze. No rustling of the covers. No warmth of a thin arm around his shoulders. No laughter. No quiet call of his name. He still rose early, but the sun did not touch the walls of his room. In his mind’s eye, he could see her stepping over rocks and roots, seating herself at a stream’s edge. The brush threaded through, a hundred times, and her fingers weaved, over and over.


End file.
